Paying Developers to Support Windows 8 is a Slippery Slope

Windows 8 is following down yet another path first blazed by Windows Phone: With developers ignoring the platform in favor of well-entrenched competitors, Microsoft is forced to pay for apps. And this artificial platform growth may be the most telling sign yet that the OS is in trouble.

In the good old days, Microsoft would deliver a platform and developers would race to support it. Today, that’s no longer a given, and while some believe this to be a recent phenomenon, the truth is, this issue dates back to the Longhorn debacle of a decade ago. But the timing doesn’t really matter. If Microsoft can’t organically grow its new platforms, the future is already decided.

One of the most exasperating aspects to this is that the developer environment, SDK and APIs, and designer tools are all amazing, and they have been since the initial release of Windows Phone in 2010. Since then, of course, there have been a few major changes. Rather than base the Windows 8/RT developer APIs on the Silverlight/XNA platform it created for Windows Phone, Microsoft went in a completely different direction, and then it moved Windows Phone 8 over to a variant of this new system, called the Windows Runtime. But the core advantages of the developer platform remain, and on Windows 8/RT in particular, where WinRT supports a variety of programming models, the amount of choice is laudable.

By comparison, the Android and iOS developer platforms are a mess. Not that it matters: As these platforms have raced ahead, developers have adopted the tools en masse out of necessity and have immersed themselves in their weirdness and idiosyncrasies. (And while I know I’ll inevitably hear from some developers who wish to defend these tools, I’m going to have to chalk up those opinions to a tech version of the Stockholm syndrome.) The results speak for themselves, and what we see is a virtuous cycle: More users equates to more developers. More developers equates to more apps. More apps equate to more users. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Perceived as a laggard, Microsoft is (re)entering the markets for mobile devices—smart phones and tablets, primarily—years after the fact. The iPhone launched the modern smart phone market in 2007, and Microsoft released Windows Phone in late 2010. The iPad triggered a new market for tablet computing in early 2010, and Microsoft followed up with Windows 8/RT in late 2012. The result, as I noted in Microsoft and the Follower’s Dilemma is that these platforms may literally have come to market too late to make a difference, much as it was with the Zune’s release in 2006 (five long years after the iPod and three years after iTunes for Windows).

With Windows Phone, Microsoft has engaged in artificial platform growth by paying developers to release apps for a system they would not normally adopt due to low sales. The most recent and obvious example of this is Pandora for Windows Phone 8, for which Microsoft provided both development and financial support. That the app is excellent is almost beside the point: Pandora’s first mobile apps appeared in 2008, five years ago, and Pandora is already a fixture on every successful mobile platform. As is the case with other high-profile titles that eventually make their way to Windows Phone—the “Angry Birds” games being great examples as well—their eventual arrival on Microsoft’s smart phone platform is certainly pleasing to fans but also serves to highlight the gap between the tier-A systems—Android, iPhone—and Windows Phone.

As part of a promotion called Keep The Cash, the firm is now offering up to $2000 to developers who create a new app for Windows 8/RT (or, for that matter, Windows Phone 8; no need to mess with tradition). The offer is good for the first 10,000 qualified published apps, suggesting that Microsoft could eventually pay out a couple of million dollars. And while that’s a relatively small amount of money for a company that has tens of billions in cash assets, it’s still a bad sign. Because developers aren’t racing to these platforms of their own volition.

Obviously, the app/user base thing is a chicken and the egg proposition, and given Microsoft’s inability to organically attract developers for the past decade, its desire to jump start the market is completely understandable. But I’m worried about what this says about these platforms, and what the perception is when Microsoft is basically paying developers to support something they might have otherwise ignored.

Discuss this Article 45

I think it is still too early to tell with Windows 8. It is still relatively new and most people don't buy computers as quickly as they used to. I'd like to see where the Windows 8 store is in about two years. After all, hundreds of thousands of computers are still sold every quarter and they will all have Win 8. I think in our ever-updating Twitter and Facebook world, we all expect these things to come out and be successful within a few months.

It appears that Microsoft is falling into the trap of thinking that quantity of apps in an apps store trumps quality. Browsing the iOS and Android apps store - while there is a lot of great and useful apps - there is a lot of crapware and useless/pointless apps. Let's hope that the Windows 8 apps store doesn't go that route.

Apple had a truly superior platform in the original Mac in 1984, and MSFT followed in the early 90s with Windows. Yet it wasn't until Win 95 that a fairly decent windows 95 came out.

Apple was superior, but competitors still won the market share. The IBM PC/MSDOS world never shifted en masse to Apple.

Apple almost died (saved largely by MSFT when Jobs returned) but never penetrated the MSFT market share in PCs.

So Apple went and instead created/popularized ENTIRELY NEW MARKETS (music, phones, tablets). Those markets are now becoming "mainstream computing" and the PC market is threatened. And Apple has the big market share. MSFT is the catch-up company - a reversal of roles from the PC world. And MSFT has been non-innovative and late for all of these.

Superiority doesn't win. Often first to establish a beachhead is what wins.

Then with Windows 8, MSFT tries the bold move, but the execution is so poor that not only does MSFT NOT penetrate the tablet market, it hugely endangers its cash cow PC market.

Maybe the model itself is slowing down things. Until 8, you didn't need to go through a governed storefront so literally ANY developer could get SOMEBODY to use their application. So maybe it's just not yet worth the effort to jump through MS hoops to get your app published while the market is small.

Hey, Paul - a great article - maybe it's because we can't trust that they will continue to support the platforms - Silverlight is a great example of this - almost no information from the mothership - they just let it die (and to add insult supported Flash on RT in Metro and not Silverlight too). But forget Silverlight, it used to be that when Microsoft got into something they stuck by it until they got it right. Now, they abandon things so fast it makes your head spin - devs want to know they will be supported - simple as that.

Actually this is a very good point. I know plenty of devs that are a bit exasperated with the way they feel they've been left behind when adopting a new tech. However, I must mention that this latest shift of techs (Silverlight, WPF to WinRT) isn't that big of a departure. OK, Silverlight is dead, but the skills gained with it can still be used with Win8, WP8.

I don't get it !
The best people to write Apps for these platforms would be.....oh I don't know.......the employees of the worlds biggest software company wouldn't it !?!

Paying new developers with little experience of the platform to release fart and torch apps (ok I know those are explicitly excluded, but you get the idea) will NOT encourage new users to buy Microsoft.

In my opinion it's not the quantity (or quality) or apps on the platform that will attract users - it's simply the price!

The only reason people are flocking to things like Google Docs, Chromebooks, Android Tablets and phones has more to do with the cost (or lack of) when compared to Microsoft's offerings.

I say offer up that cash for great ideas instead and let Microsoft developers build (exclusively) the 'next big thing'.

Microsoft is dying from 'death by a thousand cuts' and needs to get it's house in order...quick sharp!

Paul, I think you misunderstood something fundamental here...;) Microsoft isn't paying anyone $2,000 per application. They are paying $100 per application up to a $2,000 total for 20 applications. $100 pretty much only pays off the fees Microsoft charges for a developer to post an app in the Microsoft store. It's a small perk/bennie--that's it. The real money any developer can hope for won't be coming from Microsoft, it'll be coming from who many people purchase his RT apps.

Again, Microsoft isn't paying anyone any more than $100 per app. It's a developer perk--not a payment for developing the app, obviously. It offsets the fees Microsoft would normally charge to post an app in the store.

Unless developers work real cheap these days, the $100 is certainly not payment for software development. It's only going to appeal to those developers who are already in the midst of doing an RT app anyway--it may encourage them to move slightly faster, but that's it as far as it appears.

I think everyone is making to big a deal out of this. I'm sure MS knows $100 doesn't begin to compensate a developer, or big software house, for the effort of producing a (decent) app. It does offse the cost of getting a developer account for the store though. Maybe gets some little hobbyist to jump in. There were tons of those guys in the old PPC days, when the developer tools were freely available, and you could 'sideload' willy nilly.

BTW, to what extent did MS support the Pandora development? If it was with developers, they need to put that team on XBox Music.

What Microsoft needs to do now is to take the strengths (esp. developer tools and support) of Windows 8/RT/Phone and drive it to developing the "next big thing" in the market.

Microsoft needs to look at what is in development today, such as the push to combine full-out computing with mobile (e.g. Ubuntu, Blackberry 10/QNX, Android?). It might have a good start here with Windows Runtime.

Whatever the next big push (e.g. cloud?), Microsoft needs to persist in maintaining Windows 8/RT and Phone's presence. It cannot afford to not be around, regardless of how miniscule the growth or adoption rates may be.

Microsoft has significantly better dev tools (I hope I never have to switch to the dismal world that other OS developers live with). If MS gives away Visual Studio Pro instead of money, I bet plenty of devs would feel encouraged... and MS wouldn't come across as desperate. BTW, if any devs aren't aware of the applications you can build inside the Office suite, you should check out the latest VSTO. The possibilities are astonishing. Also, voice recognition API's for apps...

This is an eerily replay of what IBM did in the late 80's. Our small company got some new PS/2-70s for 10K bucks instead of 20K in exchange for promising to develop software for OS/2. Then Windows 3.0 was released :-(

I got over 1 Millison downloads across my 5 XNA Games on Windows Phone (7). I was looking forward to a common WP8/Windows 8 platform. But then Microsot dumped on XNA, Silverlight (Web) and .NET. Heck they cannot even join up the developer centres, and we have to pay two different subscriptions !

So opted for MonoGame, and stumped up the Xamarin lisence, so I am now porting all my XNA Games onto Android. Its quite funny seeing the Windows 8 Marketplace fail, on the loss of all us Indie Game developers. We have moved on cos Microsoft shows little inetrest in supporting Indie Developers.
Just look at the appalling poor performance of Microsoft PubCentre Ads service.

XNA on Android with MonoGame is the future for us Indies. So Long Microsoft (NB still love using MonoGame in Visual Studio)

I have been a developer for Windows since the first versions of Visual Studio. MS put me through the pain of converting from VB6 to VB.NET and I spent a lot of time and money getting my skills up to scratch in VB.NET and VC#.NET. All was fine and Dandy until they brought out Windows 8 and tell us that now we have to do everything in HTML5. (I know they did eventually admit that you could still use VB and VC# but it seemed like an afterthought).

Well as you can imagine I for one are not prepared to chuck away all my time and effort and more importantly money spent on training myself yet again. When I saw what they did to the Silverlight developers (sound of flushing toilet), it is probably only a matter of time before they do it to VB, over the last few years it seems to be that anyone at MS treats VB as something you should scrape off your shoe and only VC# is good enough and I expect going forward only HTML5 will be good enough.

This is what pisses developers like me off. I want a stable platform that I can work with and know that it will be around in 10 years time and that has an easy way to submit your applications.

I tried to take up their free offer to create a developer account with access to the store so that I could try out developing some Metro applications and learn how to submit them to the store and after about 25 emails trying to prove to Semantec that I am a Sole Trader and not a Limited Company I gave up as I just could not be bothered.

As a developer I make my living writing database applications mostly and cannot see how you would ever want to use touch to deal with databases, spreadsheets accounts packages etc. Those types of users want to be sat at a desk with keyboard and mouse, with multiple big screens not some pokey little 10" display on a tablet screen with a kick stand.

I am seriously hacked off with Microsoft because they appear to think the pursuit of the iPad market (which they will never get by the way) is so great that they should discard the millions of desktop users who have been their bread and butter since Windows 3.11 in favour of a "touch first" paradigm that is just alienating existing Windows users in their doves.

I do IT support as a second arm to my business and I had a seasoned Windows user calling me up in tears because she had just taken receipt of her new laptop that had Windows 8 on it to replace her old one that had died and she was in a hurry to get some work done for a deadline and was so frustrated that she couldn't do anything with it. I managed to stop her taking the PC back and downloaded and installed Stardock's Start8 and got her up and running with a copy of Office and she was as happy as anything with it after that. All this pain could have been avoided if MS would just stop this "you will do it our way" mentality and accept that new paradigms like touch can only be implemented slowly and as it makes sense to their dedicated users.

Before Ms Larsen-Green came on the scene with the MS Office ribbon interface Microsoft used to always put new features in like that, but give the user the option of turning it off and using the old method they were more familiar with. It does seem noticeable that since she has been on the scene Microsoft seem much less caring about their customers and it worries me intensely that she is now running the Windows division.

So if you are wondering why developers are ignoring the Windows 8 platform I think the above may be part of it. We are feeling alienated by our platform and can see much more lucrative and more stable platforms that we can work on that won't throw us out with the dishwater when some new hair brained scheme comes into Microsoft's head.

"I want a stable platform that I can work with and know that it will be around in 10 years time and that has an easy way to submit your applications."

It sounds like you're describing Windows 8 (in all seriousness). .NET has been around for over 10 years and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Even SL will have mainstream support until 2021. WinRT isn't going away and, to me, it is very similar to .NET...although it is a v1 and has lots of maturing to do.

"As a developer I make my living writing database applications mostly ... Those types of users want to be sat at a desk with keyboard and mouse"

Database driven forms-based applications are the applications best suited to conversion into web apps or simple WinRT apps. Nobody needs a desktop for a web form or a simple spreadsheet. You're not writing Excel. In the Windows world, you're talking about the dying ASP/.Net/MSSQL paradigm. This is being replaced by PHP/JavaScript/Ruby/Java/mySQL, even in many pure Windows shops.

The Windows apps that aren't easily replaced by web apps are complex C++ productivity apps like AutoCAD or PhotoShop and games, because their functionality greatly exceeds what you can do in WinRT currently.

Good article Paul. I would like to see Windows Phone performing better in the marketplace. I think it is an interesting alternative to iOS and Android.
I love my HTC Trophy over my previous Androids as well as my old iPhone. Going to upgrade to a Lumia eventually.

I'm a university professor in a field in the Humanities. Granted, we're not the biggest pool of users, but there's certainly millions like me in the world (more so if you count students).

People like me mostly use laptops for Word/Excel/Powerpoint, Internet, music and video. Period. This is my laptop usage, the same as most other departments in the Humanities and I'm sure that signals similar usage patterns over the world.

Then, what boggles my mind is the following: if Windows RT offers exactly the 6 things I need (again: Word/Excel/Powerpoint, Internet, music and video) in a lighter, thinner form factor that cannot get viruses (since they can't run on ARM), who are people not getting RT devices in hordes?

I bought an RT device just a month ago and I'm ecstatically happy with it. It does all I needed from my previous laptop in a thinner, lighter device, that I can use as laptop or tablet as I want, AND gives me crazy 10-15h battery life.

I'm sure that whether academic or not, there's millions of people with my same usage scenarios. I can't understand why they wouldn't be buying these devices, other than ignorance.

Windows = IBM OS/2
Your comment is very interesting, because it illustrates the way Microsoft slowly builds its strategy: by providing a lighter version of Windows for "office based" knowledge workers, who have been long time supporters.
You admit you have relatively small needs, and so you are happy with RT. But the mass, the largest population, people who now are using their mobile device all the time, in the train, in their car as GPS, during their workout as digital coach and tracker, during the parties, etc. these people just suffocate on the Windows platform.
I am like you an office based guy who have been using Windows for years. I converted myself to Android just because I was constantly frustrated for every mobile usage and I can tell you that Android appears right now like Windows in the 90's: the place to be as an app, and Windows 8 looks more and more like the former IBM OS/2: a tehnically solid, but completely ignored platform.
Another comment is that a vast majority of Unviersity based population uses Apple products, which have always fulfilled their needs, while it is still expensive.
So as other commenters here, I predict that RT first, then Windows 8 Metro will slowly estinguish, like OS/2 did.

"The mass...these people just suffocate on the Windows platform." How so? That sounds quite exaggerated. The examples you site (GPS, workout tracker) are certainly available on WP. I'm not saying your perception doesn't matter - it does, and something MS has to address.

As far as having relatively small needs, I would argue most people fit that category. Web browsing, email, social apps, music, video, Word, maybe Excel.

Hello Tim,
The fact is that having lived with a WP7 for 30 monthes, I spent hours searching for apps that were evidence for friends using apple or android (transportation apps, podcast apps, anything related with real mobility) and even if I am a twenty years MS fan, I was pissed off to lose my time in the so-called market place.
Then WP8 was issued and what? lots of cool apps were available ONLY on WP8 and not on WP7 (while most of them were still not available, like these local apps, ie. swimming pools schedules, available on apple and android).
Then Windows 8 Metro environment was realeased and what? there isn't even yet a FACEBOOK app and the mail and calendar apps were completely crappy!
The job is not done at 50% for Windows 8 ecosystem, it is done at 15 or 10 %.
Just use a standard Android phone like a S2 and you are instantly far from Windows Phone concerning the apps choice and quality.
OK, android is not "beatiful" like Windows Phone and its Metro paradigm. But what the use of such a paradigm when even Redmond developpers code monsters like "mail" or "calendar". And what the use of an NT kernel if it is said to be supported only for 18 monthes.
For me, having a reduced and portable version of Windows is not a sufficient driver to play a role in the mobility market. If I want a small portable Windows/Office machine, I take a small netbook, period. But if I buy mobility, I escape from the MS world.

The point of Windows 8 vs Apps is simple: It doesn't need them. Buy a Windows 8 laptop, desktop, tablet or hybrid right now, and you won't need over 90% of these apps on iOS and Google Play. Why? Because there's millions of desktop programs to buy and download off the web, and most mobile apps are simply a skin over a website to allow more efficient usage on the phone and smaller tablets. Why do you want a Facebook App with limited usage, when you can get all of Facebook's features and games at Facebook.com and even access all the games and Apps? Continuing that logic, we don't need eBay or Amazon, you just go the website. We don't need a torrent app, we just download the torrent client. We don't need an app to play other video formats, we just download plugins for Windows Media Player. You can argue Windows RT and Windows Phone lacks this, but Windows 8 doesn't. Still, considering my logic, you can still go to the browser on WP8 and RT and access most of these websites without the needs of apps, and pin them to the start screen. Windows 8 is far more powerful, useful and vast than Android will ever be.

I completely agree with you. The main problem I see with RT (apart from the dreadfully incomplete core apps) is that Microsoft has failed to market it and explain the advantages to people well enough. Their adverts with the dancing, spinning, clicking stuff does not do this. Add to this that Microsoft seriously underestimated that people don't like change and the growth of the meme that "Windows 8 is crap" that spread where most people had not even used it.

This is something of a non-story. There is plenty of direct evidence for the trouble WP is in from the sales figures of Nokia and HTC's WPs. These numbers have been inching higher, which is positive news for this chicken/egg developer interest/market share problem. Once (if?) WP reaches a "critical mass" of adoption, developer incentives will be a non-issue.

I have to second the call for more and better first-party exclusives for the platform from one of the world's best and most powerful software companies (hello MS? are you listening?).

I don't believe WP is dead, but for it to survive there can be no complacency at MS. The success of Windows 8, and further integration of WP with that OS, would be huge for the former. So far, however, Win 8 isn't out of the woods either.

One of the (many) things that baffles me is how MS could simply slap the XBox brand onto WP and think "ok, job done," without actually following up with some great mobile games for the platform. One of my hopes as an early adopter was that XBox developers might be incentivized to develop some must have exclusives. This would be a huge selling point for WP. Still waiting.

Microsoft's tardy update for its own apps for Windows 8 is a bad sign of their commitment to the platform. Nonetheless, I don't think this plan to pay developers is a "slippery slope". Once there are sufficient amount of submissions, the incentive stops. A slippery slope argument suggests something bad will happen. I see no such disadvantage; however, there is no guarantee for quality so all the developer has to do is make sure it passes the rules and regulations of the app store.

Windows 8 does not lack for apps. It seems to lack any interest from the public, thus developers don't care despite the potential of a large amount of users who bought Windows 8 touch mobile devices or computers.

I recommend they fix the touch user interface of Windows 8. Fix their own apps with new updates. Release a 7 inch lightweight Surface RT tablet with a new name (remove the "RT"). Release the Surface Pro with the new Haswell CPU with 4:3 screen with larger screen sizes (11 and 13 inch). Needs killer apps. I can think of Maps and Photos as much have apps. Where's the original Surface tabletop photo application? I loved shuffling the photos around like a card game.

A nice joke I read in a forum is that, "Microsoft should pay Windows 8 users, instead of developers". :-)

Anyway, MS is a mess from a technical point of view now. Too many managers, and too few developers and software engineers? I do not know for sure.

I think the mobile market is lost for Microsoft.

The same is true for the cloud market.

The enterprises either move to Linux, or remain with Windows 7.

When PC makers switch to different OSes for new desktops/laptops (Chrome OS/Linux, or something other), Microsoft is obsolete. And I think if they have nothing interesting to offer, this is not a bad thing.

MS just can't catch a break it seems. I get that Paul is just laying out both sides of this, but it just seems like MS will always get a knee-jerk negative reaction in the rest of the tech media.

People complain all the time about the lack of quality apps, and then when MS does something to give a small incentive, people complain about that too. Its just $100 after all, not enough to actually cover dev costs for an app.

MS can't even do something small like that without the usual questions about the end of MS, etc, etc. If MS went out and simply paid all the devs with popular apps to work on wp or win8, would that be acceptable?

To me, it seems like a lot of people expect very quick adoption for these new and different platforms (wp and win8) and the current slow progress is causing some to flip out and go overboard when analyzing it. MS just needs to stay committed to growing and improving these platforms.

Adoption will continue to grow slowly until they reach a critical mass not just in number of sales, but also positive mindshare among the masses. Currently, MS faces an uphill battle to simply get their platforms into the minds of the general consumers and to counter the negative press or lack of press that many in the mainstream tech media apply to wp or win8.

I don't know what the best method is for doing that other than keep pushing as hard as possible to improve and market to the public

Metro Graphical Paradigm
There is another problem with RT apps, it is the "Metro" graphical language that few people understand. When you consider Android or Iphone apps, they more or less continue the Desktop/Menus paradigm, providing option buttons, parameters menus, etc. while the Metro paradigm creates a new difficulty with lateral scrolling, tiles, etc.
Developpers are tricky, but not geniuses and the effort to integrate at the same time the technical language AND the Metro global design philosophy is maybe too steepy.
The best example for that is the mediocrity of native metro apps, which come from Microsoft itself. If Redmond cannot code in Metro, who could?

As a couple of other readers already pointed out, I do not consider this as "Microsoft paying developers to write apps." I don't think anyone would seriously consider $100 (per app) to be sufficient/fair payment for the creation of an app. It is simply a perk (as mentioned above). I have an app that is about 95% complete (just need to finish up some testing). I see this as an opportunity to get my next year's developer store account paid for (@ $99/year). If I happen to get another app in before the offer is gone, then that's just a bonus.

Also, it's worth mentioning that this is actually one of the least costly campaigns Microsoft has ran to help entice developers. I currently have a Samsung Focus (WP7) and Nokia Lumia 800 - both which were provided to me free of charge because I had entered a couple of app challenges in the past - both of which I would easily value above $100 :-)

I'm a developer, and I don't see a problem with this. First of all, MSFT is loosing. and they are loosing big time. They are pretty much a non event in phones and instead of paying for the top apps to make it to the platform, they spend untold billions on Skype instead...huh? Can you imagine how many of the top apps windows phone would have today if they would have allocated just 1% of the Skype money for 3rd party devs?

second, MSFT will not think twice to burn billions on xbox yet what's the market for that? 100 million consoles over 10 years? If they put that much money into paying devs for apps, WP would probably reach parity with android in less than a year.

Third, once the platform gets traction because of the apps and has enough marketshare where devs will make the money on sales, not MSFT payments, then the program can go away.

Compare that strategy to MSFT's own:
1) charge for an OS which has no marketshare.
2) charge app developers to develop for an OS with no marketshare
3) ask developers to spend money/time/resources for an OS with no marketshare.

As crazy as this sounds they can't NOT charge. When the PS3 came out and revealed that online gaming would be free it was because they needed something to draw the masses to the platform. That move may or may not have helped. Now that the PS3 is (arguably) doing better I'm sure that they would LOVE to start charging, but if they did, people would be screaming in the streets. My guess is that even if they don't get much more marketshare at the very least they can say they didn't lose as much money as they would have had they done everything for free.

PS3 is already extinct...;) The PS4 has already been announced, if you haven't heard, and it's an 8-core x86 AMD APU! People can pontificate all they like, but at the end of the day ARM has an incredibly high mountain to climb, the "x86 mountain" in fact. Non-portable computing with large, easy-to-read screens & pointing devices with resolutions of thousands of dpi, and comfortable keyboards--not to mention comfortable desk chairs--isn't going anywhere. It's here to stay.

Portability is but an analogue to non-portable computing, and tablets have as much chance of unseating the desktop as they have of replacing the family room widescreen TV. Every time some new fad comes along people are quick to assume it will replace everything that went before, and that almost never happens. It's disappointing to see Microsoft
fall all over itself trying to emulate Apple, however--I would have thought the company had a lot more confidence in its core products. In its mad dash to say "me, too!" Microsoft is doing little other than communicating its own insecurity to its markets.

Ignoring how late Microsoft was to he market and how poorly they're doing on the execution of updating Windows 8 and their apps rapidly, I think the issue is that free apps have conditioned people to expect something for nothing.

I've been a developer on the Microsoft platform for over 20 years. I love it. I make my living off of it. I've thought many times about writing apps for Win 8 and Win Phone 8, but I cannot justify the effort for the low return on investment when considering the competition with free apps. I suspect other long time MS platform developers have considered the same thing and come to the same conclusion.

The other issue is the mess of runtimes pointed out by Paul. I know a heck of a lot of devs that love .NET. I think it would have been smart to support that for Win8 and Win Phone 8 apps in some manner. Instead, we have two totally different runtimes for Win8 and Win Phone 8 and neither are .NET.

There is certainly a lot of Windows vs Apple and overall Windows bashing in the article and comments. I agree with most of the article and some of the comments, but I don't explicitly use or support one brand, OS, or product platform of devices.

I have not seen any mention though of some thriving aspects of current Windows products. For one, Google and Apple aren't handing out cash to developers. Do you really think that programmers and software companies are like, "oh, I guess we'll make some apps for Win8 cause they're so hard up and they're going to pay us" ? Not really.

There is actually a lot of excitement and more opportunity than ever before to profit from applications for the Windows platform. Also, the business community simply doesn't run on Android or Macs.

Additional thriving Windows products and services include Azure, the ever evolving Visual Studio IDE, Microsoft Office 2013, the entire ASP.NET web development platform and industry, the new WinJS JavaScript library that interfaces with the Win8 RT creating the ability to achieve web-based application features that were not possible or considered prior, and of course their new touchscreen approach to the PC. I say new because there has not been an OS for desktops based so much around touchscreen monitors. All of the major manufacturers are on board with desktop touchscreen systems.

Ipads, Iphones, and especially Droid phones are freakin great! Don't get me wrong. But a new or upgrading company that needs 100 or 1000 desktops or laptops, along with a proven networking platform with cloud data systems and services, is going to choose the Windows line of products. When they do, they will be interfacing with their PCs via touchscreen, running business applications more thoroughly integrated and supported than ever before.

All that said, and I'm still not a Windows guy. But I admit I am tempted when playing with a 32" touch monitor hooked to a Win8 PC.

Many people are holding on to an outdated view of computing. Desktop sales have been declining year after year as people move to tablets and phones. Microsoft was doomed if they didn't get out there to compete with the next generation. And as bt noted, the Enterprise world is more Windows than iOS or Android for back end and most systems. But what I see is that most of the businesses I interact with, they still run systems on top of Windows. Most of them still running XP Embedded. What cracks me up is that if those were ported to ModernUI apps, they could not only increase their potential customer base with RT tablets in the sub-$400 range coming out, and not only increase their own app sales, but also boost MS here indirectly as a side-effect.